About four years ago, Melissa Riechers found herself without a home for herself and her five children.

Those were dark times for Riechers. She and her children  who now range in age from 10 to 16 years old  were kicked out of her boyfriend's house in Centralia, and they didn't have a place to go. Riechers didn't have a high school degree or the training to get a good job. She was aimless, grappling with methamphetamine addiction and indifferent to where her life was heading.

"I just didn't really care," said Riechers, 32. She and her children were able to take refuge with her sister-in-law, who advised Riechers to get on the waiting list with Columbia Housing Authority.

After a few months, she was able to move into a unit on Trinity Drive. At first, Riechers said, she was uneasy about moving into one of Columbia's downtown public housing neighborhoods.

"I was very nervous at first," Riechers said. "I heard all the horror stories."

But the stories  about drugs and violence  turned out to be just that, she said. In her time there, Riechers said, she and her family have felt safe. And with stable housing, Riechers said, she was able to concentrate on finding ways to turn her life around.

By severing ties with friends and associates from her drug-addled past, she said she was able to kick meth without seeking treatment. During her time in public housing, she began taking part in Columbia Housing Authority's Family Self-Sufficiency Program, which has put her on a five-year path to having a home of her own.

Riechers has earned her GED and is taking online courses from Columbia College. She has a job with Columbia Housing Authority, or CHA, working as an assistant to the managers for the downtown housing units, which has given her access to health insurance. Now, she said, she does not have to dread paying for visits to the doctor, and her family does not have to worry about evictions or utility shut-offs while Riechers works her way toward self-sufficiency.

"We don't panic anymore," said Riechers, who still lives in the same unit on Trinity Drive.

CHA's Self-Sufficiency Coordinator Cornellia Williams, who sat with Riechers in her living room on a recent afternoon as Riechers talked to a reporter, said the Riechers who moved into public housing just a few years ago is a different person than the woman she knows today  she is more confident and more talkative now, Williams said.

"You didn't even know she was in the room because she was so quiet," Williams said.

At the same time CHA provides an essential safety net for the poor by providing stable housing, the agency also provides programming to help residents form a series of steps that could one day lead them to live without government housing assistance. Williams compared the programs to a three-stage rocket that can carry CHA residents out of the social safety net.

"The boosters fall off, and you're able to soar," she said.

Williams said that since the self-sufficiency program was launched a few years ago, about 80 percent of the participants now have jobs or are taking classes.

While public housing residents have used assistance provided through CHA to improve their lives, the agency is now seeking outside assistance to improve its housing units, which  in the case of the units at Lincoln and Unity drives just a few blocks from Riechers' residence  are more than 50 years old and contain aging foundations and electrical, plumbing and sewer systems.

CHA has proposed working with private developers to revitalize its downtown housing stock, but its plan has raised concerns among some residents and members of local advocacy groups. But with dwindling federal funding, CHA has been resigned to keeping its units up to code with short-term Band-Aid fixes.

"If we don't do something to preserve the existing stock of public housing in Columbia, we're going to find ourselves in a real dire situation in 10 or 15 years from now," said Phil Steinhaus, housing authority CEO.

Additionally, CHA wants to work with other agencies and service providers to grow the city's affordable housing stock, which Steinhaus said could provide an additional step up for the poor to eventually break the cycle of poverty.

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In the current fiscal year, CHA has a budget of $11.7 million. Although its operations are heavily subsidized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, CHA brought in $1.1 million in rent during the year.

CHA's 719 units were built between 1956  starting with its downtown housing sites  and 1973, when work was completed at the Bear Creek Family Site on Elleta Boulevard in north Columbia. The oldest stock harkens back to a bygone era in public housing that saw high-rises and row houses for the urban poor pop up in cities across the country. CHA budgeted about $4.3 million for public housing operations in the current fiscal year.

Sixty-seven percent of residents in low-rise properties and 51 percent of residents in CHA's high-rise properties  which serve the disabled and the elderly  have an annual income of $10,000 or less. In terms of race, CHA public housing residents don't match up with the general population. Sixty-seven percent of residents in the low-rise housing are black, and 29 percent are white. In the high-rises, 71 percent of residents are white, and 28 percent are black.

To be eligible for public housing or for Section 8 vouchers, applicants must be 18 years old, must not owe money to any federal housing assistance program and must submit to a background check.

Capital funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, that pays for major renovations in CHA's public housing has fallen from about $1.3 million in 2002 to about $835,000 this year. Despite this, CHA has managed to keep its units habitable and recently received high marks from HUD for the care of its properties. It was able to avoid the grim fate of public housing projects in larger cities, such as St. Louis' Pruitt-Igoe urban housing project, which is synonymous with failed urban renewal efforts. The 33-tower high-rise was constructed in the mid-1950s on 57 acres, but it was demolished about two decades later after the site slipped into disrepair and criminality.

"It was just too many people in one place," said Peter Salsich, a professor at the Saint Louis University School of Law.

Salsich served as the first chairman of the Missouri Housing Development Commission when it was created by the state legislature in 1969. He said that in the mid-1970s, housing advocates focused their efforts on ways to give some of the responsibility of housing the poor to private developers and property managers, and Section 8 vouchers  which allow low-income families and individuals to access rental housing on the private market  became more popular.

CHA spent about $5.6 million on its Section 8 program this fiscal year. More than 1,100 vouchers were distributed to qualified individuals. Through the program, tenants are allowed to seek out their own housing and are required to provide 30 percent to 40 percent of their adjusted household income for rent while CHA picks up the rest of the bill. About 90 percent of Section 8 households have an annual income of $20,000 or less; 69 percent of participants are black, and 28 percent are white.

One recipient of CHA Section 8 vouchers is Paula Blueitt. Now a North Kansas City resident, Blueitt once lived at 308 St. Joseph St. in Columbia. Blueitt lived in the home for nearly 10 years before Boone County Family Resources bought it last year. The property is now a source of controversy as Boone County Family Resources considers demolishing it.

Blueitt came to Columbia from Kansas City many years ago and stayed behind for the slower pace of life here.

"It was more quiet and peaceful," Blueitt, 44, said of Columbia. While here, she was a single mother of three children, who are all adults now.

After the sale of 308 St. Joseph, Blueitt was unable to find new housing in Columbia. CHA staff found her a place in the Kansas City area, but two of her three children remain in the city.

"It's not what I wanted, but hey, I feel blessed to have a roof over my head," Blueitt said.

Blueitt's departure from Columbia highlights a problem for Section 8 recipients in the city  a lack of housing that falls within their price range. The city's dearth of affordable housing is nothing new to local business and government leaders: A report released in 2008 by an affordable housing task force recommended 400 new housing units for low-income residents be made available each year, but CHA reported that between 2007 and 2011, the number of applicants on the waiting list for Section 8 vouchers increased from 766 to 1,114 and that in July there were 477 applicants on its waiting list for public housing.

As part of its effort to revitalize its existing housing stock and its goal of growing affordable housing in the city, CHA is in negotiations with a team of consultants to develop a long-term plan to seek out properties that would be suitable for such projects.

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Williams, CHA's self-sufficiency coordinator, lived a majority of her life in Columbia's public housing neighborhoods. She said although things are safer than they used to be, the units themselves have changed little.

Residents at public housing on Lincoln and Unity drives  the oldest public housing in the city  have complained about substandard plumbing and sewers. Engineers have identified damaged foundations, and CHA maintenance crews are regularly fixing sinking floors.

CHA is in the process of negotiating $68,000 worth of contracts with a group of three consulting firms that have offered their services in revitalizing downtown units and to help CHA achieve its goal of growing affordable housing in the city.

But revitalization plans have been met with skepticism from residents and members of local groups such as Grass Roots Organizing, which advocates for low-income families and individuals. They worry not only about the shifting of residents that would need to occur for CHA to conduct renovations but also are cautious about the proposed private-public partnership to help finance the renovations.

The proposed changes caused a whirlwind of rumors among CHA residents  some wondering whether their homes would be taken away as a result of the effort.

"Rumors, unfortunately, become a factor in anything we do," CHA Board of Commissioners Chairman Marvin Kinney said at the board's meeting on Tuesday.

The proposal to remodel the units at Lincoln and Unity drives could cost an estimated $80,000 per unit. To fund it, CHA plans to apply to the Missouri Housing Development Commission for tax credits. If approved, CHA has said it would finance the project by entering into a partnership with private developers in which CHA would retain ownership of the land and management and maintenance obligations for the buildings. The carrot to attract private investors, who would have ownership stakes in the public housing units for 15 years, would be the tax credits granted by the Missouri Housing Development Commission, or MHDC.

Mary Hussmann, a member of GRO, said at a public meeting Wednesday night that the public-private model of funding low-income housing in the city is foreign to Columbia residents. She also said lingering in the back of some CHA residents' minds is an attempt that began in 2005 to revitalize public housing along Park Avenue, just a few blocks from the Lincoln and Unity neighborhood.

At the time, local entities put up $100,000 to hire an out-of-town consultant to assess Park Avenue housing, and the consultant recommended demolishing the structures and replacing them with homes that would accommodate households of varying economic status. The plan eventually was scrapped, and a CHA task force that formed to look into the issue was disbanded in 2007.

Steinhaus has emphasized that public support can make or break proposed projects from CHA. In addition to the failed effort to revitalize public housing on Park Avenue, he cites a 2002 botched attempt at bringing additional public housing to Wyatt Lane, which was met with neighborhood resistance.

Salsich said private investment to revitalize public housing could be a good idea if residents are not displaced as a result, but he noted there are potential risks for public housing authorities. They could be saddled with new operating costs after investors no longer are signed on to the project. "This is a new venture, and in many respects it needs to be tried," Salsich said. "It's just that people need to go into it with their eyes open."

One firm that has offered to partner with CHA in its venture is the St. Louis-based ND Consulting Group, which is not a stranger to the community. The firm assisted Rain of Central Missouri in receiving financing through low-income housing tax credits to construct Waterbrook Place Apartments, a $1.2 million project on Garth Avenue near Worley Street that opened in 2008.

The firm is co-owned by Michele Duffe, who has previously served as a director of St. Louis' land bank, the Land Reutilization Authority.

Duffe said when public housing once again is fully under CHA's control, the agency will be able to make up any differences in operating costs through new revenue generated from the authority's proposed affordable housing projects, which could come in the form of development fees.

If the plan to renovate the units moves forward, residents would be protected through the federal Uniform Relocation Act, which would require CHA to pick up the tab for moving costs for displaced residents and to make up the difference if the security deposit for a new residence costs more than what they paid to CHA.

Peter Stiepleman, a member of the CHA Board of Commissioners and assistant superintendent for elementary education for Columbia Public Schools, said the district would ensure that the children of CHA residents who take Section 8 vouchers during the renovation process would be able to attend the same school, regardless of where they move in the city, by providing them with transportation.

Stiepleman said the district has the authority to do so under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. The children of displaced CHA residents could be considered homeless because they lack fixed, permanent housing.

As for residents, CHA has said it would like to make the renovations as painless as possible. After it submits an application to MHDC, it will spend the nine months in which the commission considers CHA's application for approval interviewing residents to determine how they could be shifted while renovations take place.

"We don't want to make any mistakes," Steinhaus told CHA residents at the public meeting on Wednesday. "We want to make sure we do it right."